Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Deaf Ears

If justice is blind, it is also deaf.

In what John Nichols recalled as retired Justice Steven’s “haunting reminder of once prevalent southern lynchings,” Troy Davis was executed late this evening, dying 11:08 P.M. in Georgia. Community activists decry his execution as legal murder or lynching by the State.

The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution moments before Mr. Davis, strapped into a gurney, was to be lethally injected with poisons at 7; however, it turned out our hopes for a stay had been falsely raised when, not much later, the Court summarily and unanimously turned down the appeal, without explanation.

Mr. Davis’ courageous 19 year effort on death row produced 700,000 signatures on petitions to the Georgia prison authorities, worldwide demonstrations, and appeals for clemency from prominent political and community leaders, including a Nobel laureate, a former U.S. President, the Pope, the European Union, 50 members of Congress, former representatives, and a former director of the F.B.I. No physical evidence connected Mr. Davis to the crime, 7 out of 9 witnesses recanted, alleging police coercion, and one of the two remaining witnesses reportedly boasted of being the actual murderer. Even jurors came forward to assert that, if they had known differently, they would not have voted for a conviction, and Mr. Davis would be free.

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